


Notes on Departure

by WumbusBumbusLumbus (NewYorkerOfficial)



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: F/M, Feelings do be getting experienced, More may be added based on personal caprice and indications of interest, This reeks of YA, real sad hours
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:21:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29254356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NewYorkerOfficial/pseuds/WumbusBumbusLumbus
Summary: Some things are so difficult to leave behind. Some hurts seem too deep to heal. The answers to some questions seem unclear. What is there to be done?Experimental angsty sad boi BOTW moment made in submission to the grand counsel of Link/Mipha writers.
Relationships: Link/Mipha (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	Notes on Departure

She watched him walk across the bridge, out of sight, away. She said she wouldn’t watch, that it would do no good, that it would only make memories that would trouble at night and fade away like a long scar. But there she was, standing on the high stone platform, looking as the figure shrunk and faded into the horizon.

She returned to her chamber, memory after memory replaying itself. They followed one after another but never completed, each one only joining a grand, confusing swirl. It was a muddy whirlpool, and one she knew was wise to keep away from. But, like the barb of harpoon, the pernicious thoughts had fixed themselves in the very roots of her mind, and caused as much pain to tear out as to leave in, hanging, heavy. 

At times they served only to remind, to present a hasty watercolor of some treasured moment. At other times they condemned. The crime was unclear, but the guilt, the tinge of anger, surged and throbbed. Sometimes, more innocent, they brought the edge of a smile to her lips, and her vision cleared a little.

Mipha looked out the door. Sunset had passed long ago. The glowing rock of her home was deceptive at times. But perhaps, she thought, when you had so many, many long years to live, it was a small thing to lose a little time. It was oddly quiet. Surely Muzu or someone should have bothered her by now, pestering her with some grating admonition or calloused request.

No, Mipha thought. I can’t give in to that. It is my duty to serve as well as to rule. But more than to rule, always to give. Her father, who Mipha imagined had noticed the situation and was keeping her isolated, said sometimes that to rule was a gift. Not a gift to the ruler, even as a princess Mipha saw that the costs so often outweighed any gain. No, it was a gift to the people. Not in a proud way, as if you were a divinely appointed gift to a feeble-minded mob, but a giving of yourself, even to the end. It was, at least, if you wanted to be a good ruler, worthy of the people’s love and deference.

She banished the thoughts, the memories, for a time. She knew they would return, not out of prior experience but out of some instinctual recognition of her mind. But she could keep them away awhile, enough to think clearly. She was used to this by now, the perpetual steeling of oneself, the control. Temperance, Muzu would call it. The ability to do the right thing in due season, bringing the self into submission.

Mipha’s legs felt tired. She was surprised she had not worn a trench into the stone floor with all the pacing of the last few hours. From a safe distance, she looked at the polished wooden box on the floor in the center of her room, the lid ajar, just as she had left it. She was different then, the Mipha of a few hours ago. Angrier, to be sure. Or just disappointed, maybe. Angry and disappointed. Two very improper -- and somewhat tacky -- ways to feel. 

She looked in the box, sliding the well-crafted wooden lid onto the floor, disturbing the long silence with a sharp clatter. Mipha looked at the fruit of her months’ labor, lying there inanimate and menacing in a half knot, nearly filling the low box. What were you to do with such a rich gift if the receiver had rejected it. Muzu would have had a quiet and convenient solution to such a problem: throw it away. A bolder soul, more untethered, might have used it for themselves. But Mipha knew that she could neither discard this gift -- though it mocked her so -- nor use it herself. She couldn’t bring herself to cast it aside, for she had invested far too much effort in its creation and emotion in its preparation. She couldn’t use it herself because it wouldn’t fit.

Reaching inside, she took the armor in a webbed hand, holding it close to her chest. Her claws dug into the smooth scales and flexible cloth as he clenched her fist around it. She squeezed tighter and tighter, burrowing the armor into her palm. She kept squeezing, holding, bringing it to her face, as if somehow she could squeeze the love out of it and back into herself.

There she went again. Another flight of fancy, another unwarranted feeling. She took the armor and laid it gently back in the box. She didn’t bother to fold it. Reapplying the lid, she took the box and laid it gently on a shelf, resting it in a perfectly empty space seemingly predestined for the task. She didn’t want to think about how long it would likely remain there. 

Mipha walked back to the stone platform, back to where she watched him go by the then-daylight. She resumed her position by a glowing pillar, one arm wrapped around the slender edifice. The domain glowed, pale and beautiful, and tall guards carried silver spears as they quietly patrolled. 

Perhaps she was overthinking it all. Maybe she was too flighty, fragile, intemperate, the looming stereotype of princesskind that Muzu had been so determined to scold out of her.  _ A drama queen _ , as young Sidon was fond of saying. Maybe that was it; perhaps she was acting a little too much like Sidon, too juvenile. A manner most unbecoming a growing leader. Yet, Mipha wondered, why couldn’t she, just this once? She was still, in many very real ways, a late adolescent, or a young adult, or whatever term was more fashionable. She cursed the long maturing of the Zora. If only she could be like a Hylian, from the cradle to the wedding dais in practically the blink of an eye. 

If only a Hylian. Wedding dais.

Why couldn’t she have a single valid emotion, at this of all times? Didn’t she have a proper reason? No one seemed to mind when Kodah looked like she would bawl her eyes out at the slightest provocation, that time only a few short years ago. Why did anyone rule, if this was their lot? If to rule was to give, it was to give too much. Why was the business of princesses and heroes, rulers and legends, only to give and give until utterly spent. Yes, she wasn’t spent yet. She had plenty ahead of her, and an undeserved share of privilege. But was this her lot in life, to live as though in a masque, her thoughts and intentions stamped permanently by tradition and expectation?

She breathed in and out. Once, twice, thrice. A pause and a sigh. It didn’t matter. Nothing would change. And someone out there had to do the giving. It seemed that whatever powers that be had elected her for just that purpose. And elected him as well, if it was all to be believed.

Mipha wished her powers could work on her own mind. To erase every hurt under a warm glow, just as she did so often with the wounded fishermen and injured soldiers. But she knew it would never work. She didn’t even have to try; she just knew it, it was fact. How fitting that her gift was one meant to be given in turn.

Mipha knew that trouble was coming soon. Every wind breathed of it, whispered vague and dire warnings. She knew that she couldn’t indulge this dark spirit for long. She was still alive, her years not yet long. She still had a family. One Hylian couldn’t change that, however hard she tried to make it so. They called her gift her Grace. Perhaps she had been given grace now, a grace to drain away these lingering emotions and move on. She didn’t know, but perhaps there was some promise, some hope of a thing better. Maybe this season, the unrequited feelings of these later years, was only a step in the path ahead.

She opened her eyes. A stray red sunbeam peaked over the mountains. It was time to move on.

**Author's Note:**

> I wonder even now why I wrote this. It was enjoyable, I guess.  
> In some sense I just wanted to submit my own work into the peculiar growing body of work in this little niche of niches, to see how my writing style compared.  
> Largely it was to get practice writing, to flex underused and rather atrophied muscles in a low-pressure environment.  
> I appreciate any comments, the critical just as much as the positive. The goal here is to experiment, to learn, and to tell a story, after all.  
> I may add to this, we will have to see.  
> Otherwise, enjoy my first fan-work. It feels odd to play with the toys in someone else's sandbox, but there is a first time for everything.  
> Hopefully you enjoy, otherwise this is truly a vanity of vanities.


End file.
